Contemporary Sufism

Contemporary Sufism PDF Author: Meena Sharify-Funk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134879997
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
What is Sufism? Contemporary views vary tremendously, even among Sufis themselves. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture brings to light the religious frameworks that shape the views of Sufism’s friends, adversaries, admirers, and detractors and, in the process, helps readers better understand the diversity of contemporary Sufism, the pressures and cultural openings to which it responds, and the many divergent opinions about contemporary Sufism’s relationship to Islam. The three main themes: piety, politics, and popular culture are explored in relation to the Islamic and Western contexts that shape them, as well as to the historical conditions that frame contemporary debates. This book is split into three parts: • Sufism and anti-Sufism in contemporary contexts; • Contemporary Sufism in the West: Poetic influences and popular manifestations; • Gendering Sufism: Tradition and transformation. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the challenges of contemporary Sufism as well as its relationship to Islam, gender, and the West. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and lecturers can explore Sufism today.

Contemporary Sufism

Contemporary Sufism PDF Author: Meena Sharify-Funk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134879997
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is Sufism? Contemporary views vary tremendously, even among Sufis themselves. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture brings to light the religious frameworks that shape the views of Sufism’s friends, adversaries, admirers, and detractors and, in the process, helps readers better understand the diversity of contemporary Sufism, the pressures and cultural openings to which it responds, and the many divergent opinions about contemporary Sufism’s relationship to Islam. The three main themes: piety, politics, and popular culture are explored in relation to the Islamic and Western contexts that shape them, as well as to the historical conditions that frame contemporary debates. This book is split into three parts: • Sufism and anti-Sufism in contemporary contexts; • Contemporary Sufism in the West: Poetic influences and popular manifestations; • Gendering Sufism: Tradition and transformation. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the challenges of contemporary Sufism as well as its relationship to Islam, gender, and the West. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and lecturers can explore Sufism today.

Sufism and Saint Veneration in Contemporary Bangladesh

Sufism and Saint Veneration in Contemporary Bangladesh PDF Author: Hans Harder
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136831894
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Focusing on the Maijbhandari movement in Chittagong, south-eastern Bangladesh, which claims the status of the only Sufi order originated in Bengal and which has gained immense popularity in recent years, this book provides a comprehensive picture of an important aspect of contemporary Bengali Islam in the South Asian context. Expertise in South Asian languages and literatures is combined with ethnographic field work and theoretical formulations from a range of disciplines, including cultural anthropology, Islamic studies and religious studies. Analysing the Maijbhandaris tradition of Bengali spiritual songs, one of the largest popular song traditions in Bengal, the book presents an in-depth study of Bengali Sufi theology, hagiography and Maijbhandari esoteric songs, as well as a discussion of what Bengali Islam is. It is a useful contribution to South Asia Studies, as well as Islamic Studies.

Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel

Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel PDF Author: Ziad Elmarsafy
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748655662
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
This book will present close readings of three contemporary Arabic novelists - an Egyptian (Gamal Al-Ghitany), an Algerian (Taher Ouettar) and a Touareg Libyan (Ibrahim Al-Koni) - who have all turned to Sufism as a literary strategy aimed at negotiating i

Modern Sufis and the State

Modern Sufis and the State PDF Author: Katherine Pratt Ewing
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551460
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests? Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics from the colonial period to the present. Contributors foreground the effects and unintended consequences of efforts to link Sufism with the spread of democracy and consider what roles scholars and governments have played in the making of twenty-first-century Sufism. They critique the belief that Salafism and Sufism are antithetical, offering nuanced analyses of the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements and self-representations in Pakistan and India. Essays question the portrayal of Sufi shrines as sites of toleration, peace, and harmony, exploring cases of tension and conflict. A wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection, Modern Sufis and the State is a timely call to think critically about the role of public discourse in shaping perceptions of Sufism.

Unveiling Sufism

Unveiling Sufism PDF Author: William Rory Dickson
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781792445
Category : Sufism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In contrast to most introductory texts on Sufism, this work begins not with the historical past, but with the contemporary present. Each chapter unveils the complexities of Sufism, journeying through a variety of historical, political, and cultural contexts, moving deeper into the past, and closer to the origin and heart of Sufism.

Sufis and Anti-Sufis

Sufis and Anti-Sufis PDF Author: Elizabeth Sirriyeh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136812768
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Despite its continuing appeal in the Muslim world, Sufism has faced fierce challenges in the last 250 years. This volume assesses the evolution of anti-Sufism since the middle of the eighteenth century and Sufi strategies for survival. It also considers the efforts of a few significant Muslim intellectuals to contemplate a future for a mystical approach to Islam without traditional Sufism. Many studies of Islam in the modern period have focused on the attempts of Muslim 'modernists' or 'fundamentalists' to come to terms with western modernity, and Sufis have often been marginalised in the process. Elizabeth Sirriyeh redresses this neglect by assigning to Sufism a central place in the broader history of Islam in the modern world and by examining how changing understandings of Sufism's role in modern conditions have affected Muslims of all shades of opinion.

Sohbet

Sohbet PDF Author: Sadiq M Alam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
What role Sufism and Islam play among contemporary spiritual seekers? What are the circumstances that led them to come to Sufism? What teachings of the Sufi Path are the most attractive to a seeker of truth? How does surrender to the Spiritual Teacher, a core component of Sufi teaching applies to Western disciples who are more oriented towards reasons and intellect? The book explores these and many other questions with fifteen contemporary Sufis. The featured spiritual seekers the majority of whom are from West are engaged in conversations uncovering their unique spiritual journey, their attraction to the Sufi Path and how they met their Spiritual Mentors and Teachers. Through these conversations, invaluable life lessons and timeless wisdom is distilled for those who are interested in spiritual life. In Sufi Path Sohbet signifies spiritual conversation or discourse between the master and disciple, or between seekers of God through association, conversation, or simply by the presence. Featured in this book are the following personalities: Amatullah Armstrong Chishti Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore Carol Sill Noor-Malika Chishti Mansur Johnson Maryam Kabeer Faye Denise Sati Dr. Stewart Bitkoff Barbara Flaherty Asher Quinn Hilary Hart Dominique Dubrule Brenda Wentworth Naila Amat-un-Nur, and Dana Hayne. Many of these seekers of truth came to the Sufi Path through veridical dreams including that of Prophet Muhammad. You will come to know, for example, how a seeker born in a British Jewish family started to have visions of Jesus from the age of five who eventually in his 20s discovered the Sufi Path and for more than last 30 years, the sacred formula La ilaha Ill'Allah became etched in his heart as a refuge and sanctuary. Through association and spiritual lineage the book features memory and teachings of some of the most important Sufi Masters of both East and West namely: Inayat Khan, Samuel L. Lewis, Vilayat Khan, Zia Inayat Khan, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Muhammad ibn al-Habib, Abdalqadir as-Sufi, Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh. May these spiritual chronicles inspire and encourage you to take your journey towards the One.

Sufism Today

Sufism Today PDF Author: Catharina Raudvere
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This book offers the first sustained treatment of Sufism in the context of modern Muslim communities. It is also innovative, in that it broadens the purview of the study of Sufism to look at the subject right across international boundaries, from Canada to Brazil, and from Denmark to the UK and USA. Subjects discussed include: the politics of Sufism, the remaking of Turkish Sufism, tradition and cultural creativity among Syrian Sufi communities, the globalization of Sufi networks, and their transplantation in America, Iranian Sufism in London, and Naqshbandi Sufism in Sweden. In its thorough examination of how Sufi rituals, traditions and theologies have been adapted by late-modern religiosity, this volume will make indispensable reading for all scholars and students of modern Islam.

Global Sufism

Global Sufism PDF Author: Francesco Piraino
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 178738134X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Sufism is a growing and global phenomenon, far from the declining relic it was once thought to be. This book brings together the work of fourteen leading experts to explore systematically the key themes of Sufism's new global presence, from Yemen to Senegal via Chicago and Sweden. The contributors look at the global spread and stance of such major actors as the Ba 'Alawiyya, the 'Afropolitan' Tijaniyya, and the Gülen Movement. They map global Sufi culture, from Rumi to rap, and ask how global Sufism accommodates different and contradictory gender practices. They examine the contested and shifting relationship between the Islamic and the universal: is Sufism the timeless and universal essence of all religions, the key to tolerance and co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims? Or is it the purely Islamic heart of traditional and authentic practice and belief? Finally, the book turns to politics. States and political actors in the West and in the Muslim world are using the mantle and language of Sufism to promote their objectives, while Sufis are building alliances with them against common enemies. This raises the difficult question of whether Sufis are defending Islam against extremism, supporting despotism against democracy, or perhaps doing both.

Following Muhammad

Following Muhammad PDF Author: Carl W. Ernst
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807875805
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Avoiding the traps of sensational political exposes and specialized scholarly Orientalism, Carl Ernst introduces readers to the profound spiritual resources of Islam while clarifying diversity and debate within the tradition. Framing his argument in terms of religious studies, Ernst describes how Protestant definitions of religion and anti-Muslim prejudice have affected views of Islam in Europe and America. He also covers the contemporary importance of Islam in both its traditional settings and its new locations and provides a context for understanding extremist movements like fundamentalism. He concludes with an overview of critical debates on important contemporary issues such as gender and veiling, state politics, and science and religion.